I'll concede one point. Delhi has a complicated history, one that's really hard to showcase through the list (mostly because it doesnt have a cohesive old town, but a score of "centres" from its many foundations)

Delhi has been the epicenter of Islamic India ever since the Delhi sultanate. Any good guide on indoislamic architecture is bound to go mention Delhi the most out of any city in the subcontinent.

Now onto the harsh part. India might be the world champion at whs duplication. What they don't have in numbers, they make up on sheer bashfullnes. Jaipur alone is on the list thrice. The sundarbans are among the most nonsensical separations in the list. Mumbai basically got the same site on the list twice. And of course here they're trying to follow the recipe.

As already pointed out by els, the site subsumes three already inscribed sites as the highlights of their areas. So the proposal ends up being a reshuffling of sites with a few toppings, notably the jama masjid, the purana qila complex and a score of mausoleums. What's interesting is that, for reasons I don't fully understand, the dossier leaves out many important sites in Delhi like the tuglabaq fort and the lodhi tombs.

Of course the exception to this lack of originality is New Delhi, which is a truly original addition to the list. My take, is that India thought the proposal was too weak and thus made this abomination a la Frankenstein.

Els has commented …

I visited this tentative WHS in January 2012. In a way, India's capital, Delhi, is a bit like China's capital, Beijing. Several top notch WHS here and there, but no real 'historic centre'. This nomination tries to make up for this by highlighting Delhi's “surviving historic urbanscape” in a triangular patch of land with the River Yamuna on one side and the northern range of Aravalli hills on the other two sides.

This historic urbanscape comprises the four precincts of Mehrauli, Nizamuddin, Shahjahanabad and New Delhi. The first three precincts are already well covered in reviews of the already inscribed crown jewels of each precinct, namely Qutab Minar, Humayun's Tomb and the Red Fort. So in this review I will focus on the remaining precinct New Delhi.

New Delhi was designed by Sir Edward Lutyens and Herbert Baker, who redefined the architecture and urbanism of the city. At its core, the Kingsway (now Rajpath) is adorned with several iconic buildings such as the Rashtrapati Bhawan and the India Gate (photo) although not exactly on par with the recently inscribed buildings of Mumbai for example.

Even though the nomination dossier tries hard to convey “Delhi's unique cultural landscape evolved from the mingling of multiple streams of cultural impulses from the Islamic and European worlds”, I would only be in favour of such an inscription on the WH list if at any point in the future 'cleaning-up' or 'streamlining' efforts are made to cluster already inscribed WHS. For example, …